The Big Goal Rush Sometimes it takes encouragement to be active on a regular basis. How are you going to motivate yourself to be active daily? Setting goals for yourself is an excellent motivator. Your challenge is to explore a variety of individual activities and then analyze and practice what it takes to do them better. It's up to you. In the long term working toward your goals is an investment in you.

Try one or more of the following:

1. Set up a way to motivate yourself when you don't feel like doing anything. Dress in your workout clothes - sometimes looking the part helps to get a person to act the part! Just remember that you don't need special workout gear. Wear seasonal clothes that do not restrict your movement and footwear that will help you to move safely (tie up those laces!). Keep a logbook, use the tracker or mark a calendar with all of the activities that you do in a week.
2. Find an encouragement buddy to be active with you, or to talk to when you need a little motivation.
3. In a couple of sentences write down how you feel before you challenge yourself to an activity, and how you feel afterward. Take this out and look at it on those days when you feel challenged. You'll be surprised at the differences you can feel before and after an activity.
4. Work on achieving a series of personal mini-goals. Reach for one mini-goal. When you make that one, go on to the next one. Writing your progress is a concrete reminder that being active on a daily basis has rewards.

Doing it Daily Self-challenges

Decide with your teacher which of these activities to complete:

1. Use the comments section of the Tracker as a logbook to help define how you felt each day of doing activity. Which activities do you enjoy the most? Why? Is some of this affected by your fitness level?
2. If it's available, attend a local fitness facility. Ensure that you have been oriented on the correct use of the facility and the machines before you attempt to begin a program. Most centres will provide a basic program for beginners to advanced users.
3. Try attending a yoga class or renting a video related to this topic. How do your muscles feel at the end of this session? Note the difference you feel at the end of a vigorous run or walk and a yoga session. Do they both have worth? Which areas of fitness do each of them affect?
4. Design a personal plan for developing muscular strength and endurance using an activity you are interested in. Analyze the time needed to complete the workout and compare it to the time you have available! Plan a daily or weekly schedule, including enough time to achieve the goals you have set out for yourself. Try this for six weeks and see how you are doing. This would be an excellent time to do a fitness assessment on yourself.
   

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activities | health benefits | cooperation | do it daily for life